Otto Money, an AI-powered wealth guidance platform, has raised $1.3 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Pravega Ventures, marking its first institutional fundraise. The round also drew participation from a group of well-known angel investors, including Rishi Kohli, CIO at Jio BlackRock AMC; Amit Gupta, Founder of InMobi and Yulu; Amit Agarwal, Founder of NoBroker; and Mohit Aron, Founder of Nutanix and Cohesity. Several existing investors also took part in the round.
Founded in 2025 by IIT alumni Apurv Gupta and Ankur Lahoti, Otto Money operates at the intersection of fintech, wealth management and artificial intelligence. The startup is positioning itself as a technology-first platform designed to help digitally savvy Indian investors navigate increasingly complex financial choices with greater clarity and confidence.
The newly raised capital will be deployed over the next 12 to 18 months to strengthen Otto Money’s AI infrastructure, enhance personalisation capabilities and deepen its aspiration- and goal-based guidance engine. The company also plans to expand its go-to-market presence across Tier 1 cities through partnerships and brand-building initiatives aimed at fostering long-term trust. A significant portion of the funds will be allocated toward building out its engineering, data science and product teams to create a robust foundation for scale.
Otto Money differentiates itself by leveraging institution-grade investment models alongside AI to deliver holistic, multi-asset guidance.
Rather than pushing specific financial products, the platform focuses on explaining trade-offs, outlining potential risks and aligning financial decisions with long-term aspirations. The aim is to provide structured, unbiased clarity in a market where retail investors often face information overload and fragmented advice.
“Indian investors today have access to more financial products than ever before, but clarity hasn’t scaled at the same pace. Otto Money is built to address that gap, using AI to help investors understand their choices, manage risk consciously and stay aligned with long-term goals rather than short-term noise,” said Apurv Gupta, Co-founder of Otto Money.
Gupta previously served as CTO of Cohesity, the data security and management company valued at over $7 billion, where he led global engineering teams building enterprise-grade data platforms. Lahoti brings more than two decades of experience from Google, where he worked as Director of Engineering, focusing on designing and operating internet-scale systems with an emphasis on reliability, performance and privacy.
India’s wealth and investment management market represents a multi-billion-dollar opportunity, supported by rising disposable incomes, increasing retail participation in equities and the growing popularity of systematic investment plans and self-directed investing. Despite this expansion, access to transparent and unbiased financial guidance remains limited, leaving many investors to contend with conflicted advice and information asymmetry.
“At Pravega, we back founders who pair deep technical depth with clarity of problem. Apurv and Ankur embody that engineering DNA in the way Otto is built. We didn’t just invest in another fintech app, but in a proprietary intelligence layer. While much of the industry continues to push products, Otto is using AI to offer institutional-grade clarity,” said Rohit Jain, Partner at Pravega Ventures.
Currently in the early stages of market deployment, Otto Money is seeing engagement from digitally native investors. Over the next two to three years, the company plans to broaden its AI-driven guidance capabilities, expand coverage across diverse investment scenarios and deepen its footprint in major Indian metros. The broader objective is to build a transparent, compliant platform that supports investors through different life stages and market cycles, while reshaping how individuals engage with their money.
